is that a burrito in your speedo or are you just happy to see me?

happy voting day. here's something that should have been on the ballots: old men in speedos. i was swimming at the Y last night, just minding my own business, swimming along when i stopped between sets for my 30 second break at the wall. as i removed my foggy goggles and reached for my waterbottle i saw something that made me do a double-take, ok a triple -take, ok so i couldn't stop staring!. this old man's speedo was completely worn and see through! he was walking across the deck to the hot tub, with his long veiny legs (partially tan with age spots), big bloated belly, and blue speedo thin as a fly's wing and loose with years and years of overuse. it was pulled up to his ribcage. i have to admit i let my gaze shamelessly follow his exposed crack and swinging ballsack all the way out of sight.

am i a pervert? no! it's not like it turned me on. it was more like a brutal car wreck that you just have to slow down for. the morbidly obese woman at the beach slathering sunscreen over waves of rippling flesh. the awkward gothic teenage boy with (is that a skirt?! or wide leg pants?) black lipstick and eyeliner and spikes and chains all over, glaring at you because he's insecure and you are blatantly staring at him but you know he must want to be seen or else he would wear what all the other kids are wearing... point being , I just couldn't tear my eyes off this speedo! i was shocked, i was appalled, i was fascinated, intrigued, disgusted! what should i have done? should i have told this old man that his speedo had seen it's last day thirty years ago and that it was time to let go for the sake of all YMCA patrons? i couldn't do it. i knew, judging by the obtrusive hearing aid protruding from his ear, i would ultimately end up repeating the already uncomfortable confrontation several times. no, there was nothing i could do.

as someone who swam competitively since the 6th grade, i am accustomed to many bodies in many speedos. i used to claim that i was immune to this obscene but functional garmet. at the Ft. Leavenworth pool, where we would frequently gather to tan and swoon as teenagers, my friends would giggle and point at the grape-smuggling foreign officers. but i would always roll my eyes as though i were the only mature one, and that seeing a speedo was no big deal and i saw them all the time at swim meets. but look at me now, image of an old man's buttcrack burned in my brain, unable to shake the swinging sack from my memory. i have grown younger. years younger.

killing time

yesterday was beautiful and i killed it. each passing minute i spent in my stuffy apartment shoved the guilt deeper and deeper down my throat until it was lodged in a most uncomfortable spot somewhere along my esophogus (i like that word). i couldn't smile. i couldn't cry. i couldn't go outside, though that is what i needed most. i settled on sleeping becuase it was easiest. it was an escape. a cop-out. i wussed out, i pussed out on Life.

i don't have an excuse or even an explanation. for some unkown reason i just felt that Life was too big for me yesterday. i coudn't face it. yes, i could have. i didn't want to. i slept, i sulked, i mourned the sun as it sunk lower and lower outside my window. Then suddenly lept up, unwilling to surrender completely. i had to get out and savor the last hour of a dying day. i felt as though i had done something horrible. something that would equate betraying a lover or wasting my life savings on a pool table. i had to get out there and redeem myself. i hiked in garden of the gods. i saw the moon shine full and bright between the kissing camels. pregnant with promise for new days.

lovely things

i had a dream about spiders. i was in a shop, like the metal shop in college and there were jars of spiders on all the benches. someone spilled them all and i had to squash them as fast as i could because the longer it took to kill them, the bigger and more ferocious they grew. cut to classroom scene. i was late. everyone was looking at me. i sat down and opened my book. the teacher yelled at me when i admitted i hadn't read the entire third harry potter book before moving onto the fourth one. the class laughed. cut to confessional. the priest was wearing a black robe. i told him i might not like art as much as i claim to. then i woke up.
things i like:
colorado; old book smell; pink; black; nepalese food; running in the rain; boys with guitars; tori amos; text messages; exclamation points; forward motion
things i hate:
two or more girls at the same time (unless i am one of them- makes me nervous); overdraft fees; feeling obligated to maintain old friendships; feeling obligated to buy something when i go into a very small shop and the salesperson's attention is fixed on me alone; feeling obligated to close my underwear drawer when i am expecting someone; obligation; semicolons; roundabouts (what are you supposed to do at those things?); misplaced anger

workouts

my face is starting to resemble some type of italian entree...regurgitated at that. my eyes are bloodshot and half-closed. i cut my hair last night to eliminate split ends. i always wonder when i cut my hair...how long have i had that hair? years? since college? since high school? did i go to the prom with the same hair that now litters my bathroom tile and clogs my sink? or am i constantly shedding? if that's true, how does it stay so long? i cut bangs so that i could look more like someone i don't even like. identifying with the agressor? no. she just has cute hair. bangs. more for me to hide behind.
lately i feel as though my workouts are semi trucks driving too fast down a tumultuous fire road and i am being drug behind by a rope, which i am clutching relentlessly in raw hands. i never feel in control anymore. i am not running the mile repeats. they are running me. i swam last night after work. even in the pool, you can tell it's nighttime. the lifeguards are yawning and checking their watches. they toss half-assed glances toward the pool as they finish up cleaning and closing duties, wishing i would just leave so they could go home and eat or go out with their friends or answer that booty call or whatever... but i still have 2 more sets of 6 x 25, 5 x 100 and a cool down left. fuck 'em. it's their fucking job and if i want to wait til the last possible minute of the day to do this workout it's nobody's business but mine, as long as i get out of here before 9 pm. and i did.
each morning i get a choice. i can get out of bed and venture into the cold dark morning and get it over with. or i can sleep in, wake up after the sun rises and allow that pregnant cloud of impending workout to hover over my head all day. dread, i call it.
i wanted this. i want this. i want the prestige, the pain, the proof, the chafing, the exhaustion, the blisters, the sunburn, the high, the bonk, the finisher's medal. i'm the one who signed up for this. i never thought it would be easy. i never even thought it would be much fun. i guess i just figured each day of training would hold the same excitement, the same triumph and glory as race day. not so. it's still the same me chugging along, however awkward or ably up another beastly hill on another boorish run. and when i reach the top, the road still ribbons on the way it always does with miles to go. and when i reach the end of that particular run, ironman is still a distant illusion. and although i come closer every day, the end is still an abiding horizon, keeping itself [this far] from me and my dream.

feeling winter

i am feeling winter today. i don't know if i'm quite ready to let go of autumn. my favorite season. also the most fleeting, quite like all the things i love. i have been cold since i awoke this morning. i was cold all day yesterday. i try to remember the last time i was warm and of course then i was too hot. i think i have learned to live with a lower body temperature than most people. you always feel the most nostalgic at the changing of seasons. but of course they have to change or else we would forget ourselves. we would lose ourselves in one comfortable temperature, one phase of photosynthesis, the same shade of sunrise at the same time every morning, the same tone of wind, smell of air, lure of mountain. you finally get accustomed to one season. you adapt to it, you accept it and the next morning you wake up inexplicably earlier or later or colder or happier or lonelier or warmer or itchier or stuffier or skinnier or fresher due to the changing of season. and you remember that you're alive. you're moving. you're constantly moving even when you think you're standing still and then you contemplate forever. you contemplate immortality as if you have a choice. and then you consider death but only because you do have a choice. and you like the feeling of control that it gives you. and then you flip it all around, new perspective and you realize you really don't have control afterall. and then your brain spins, pen spits, hands slip and you find yourself desperately trying to grasp distractions as you spin by because it's all just too much...

leaving your bicycle in the front yard

if you leave your bicycle in the front yard overnight because you went inside to play video games and forgot all about it, it will probably be gone in the morning. you are lucky if it's still there.
i watched a man with a mustache and a mullet ogle my breasts as i pumped my car full of gas this morning. i cringed as a slow smirk spread across his face. "this is hate" i thought. or maybe "hate" is what i did to myself last night and i'm just taking it out on that slimy perv who is now looking me up and down, licking his lips and nodding his approval. was that a wink? now he is putting out his cigarette. "dirty" i thought. or maybe "dirty" is what i made myself last night and i'm just taking it out on the slimy perv who is now hawking a loogie in my path as i walk toward the door to pay. "vile" i thought. or maybe "vile" is how i acted last night when i dissected two healthy brains on clean sheets and then proceeded to mash them up like avacados, mixing in citric acid and sodium, ignobly attempting to make something old into something new or maybe something new into something familiar.
and now i remember my abandoned bicycle, rusty with morning dew, laying in the cold grass, drive-side down waiting to be stolen
again

some questions about cosmopolitan with a random leap into the"pickle jar theory"

Why is "Love & Lust", one of the regular sections of Cosmo it's own category? Why are love and lust lumped together as though they are one concept or even remotely related concepts? They don't categorize all unrelated ideas in magazines. Just Cosmo. You don't pick up Fisherman's Monthly and see the heading: "Bass &Cold Whether Gear". You don't pick up Woman's Day and flip open to "Coping With Menopause & Heplful Baking Tips". You don't find "John Mayer & Who Shot Biggie" jammed together in one article of Rolling Stone.
Love and Lust. Lust and Love. One is always disguised as the other. They are always working together to send people further into the hazy depths of confusion. Can't we separate them? Can you have one without the other? Can you have the other with out the one? (Sarah, I expect you to respond to this).
I am always putting things where they don't belong. I leave my keys in the sink or between the couch cushions. I sometimes put my YMCA card in the silverware drawer. I have a painting hanging over the light switch so I have to lift it up carefully everytime I come home at night and make sure it still hangs straight after turning the light on. I put the wrong things in the right places and the right things in the wrong places.
I let the wrong people in, learn "valuble lessons" from them, and then apply those lessons erroneously to the right people, who are veritably the wrong people to inflict my "valuble lessons" upon. Someday I will get it right. The pickle jar theory will take affect and I, already loosened by so many greasy hands will open easily for someone with clean ones.